


Stay Here

by thekingslover



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Ficlet, M/M, Mild Gore, Self Harm Thoughts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25424698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekingslover/pseuds/thekingslover
Summary: Watching Nicky die never gets easier.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 30
Kudos: 609





	Stay Here

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my new Nicky x Joe tumblr sideblog, [monicashipsnickyjoe](https://monicashipsnickyjoe.tumblr.com/). Come say hi to me there, or over on the main blog, [thekingslover](https://thekingslover.tumblr.com/)! :)
> 
> Also someone please tell me when we get a ship name! Nicosuf? Yusolo? Nickoe? Uuuuuh.

Watching Nicky die never gets easier.

Joe knows the color of Nicky’s blood as it leaks from his body. He knows the way his bright eyes go distant, glazed, as his gaze shifts from Joe to nothing. He has felt Nicky’s skin grow cold under his hands. He has held him literally together, as Nicky’s insides slipped outside.

Once Nicky’s pain is gone, the waiting becomes the worst.

Will this be the death that finally separates them?

“Everything dies,” Nicky has said, would say now if he knew the trail of Joe’s thoughts. Words easily said when the other is living and breathing. Much harder to think, to accept, to understand when one has bled out on the concrete and the other has to keep going alone.

“Not you,” Joe says, but what he means is, _Not you first._

In days, weeks, months, perhaps he would be thankful to be the last one left, if only to spare Nicky that pain. But here, with his heart dead in his hands, he is selfish. He is broken. He will find a way to follow Nicky if he has to tear himself to pieces. He’s already half-gone.

Andy is beside him. Only her presence keeps him from slitting his own throat.

“It’s taking too long,” he says.

“It isn’t,” she tells him.

“Andy -” He doesn’t know what he’s asking for.

She does, and has the answer. “No.” 

Agony stretches long seconds. But he would sit there forever waiting. Begging. Each breath is punched from his lungs. His heart thunders in his ears. It’s so loud. Too loud. Not loud enough.

Beyond himself, he can’t see or hear the world around them. Only Nicky.

Only Andy as she points to the bullet wounds in Nicky’s chest. “There.” The slug pushes to the top of his flesh, then topples over, clattering onto the concrete. Again and again. The skin weaves together underneath.

Nicky closes his eyes, then opens them again. He sucks in a breath. He jerks forward.

Joe cradles his head before Nicky can smack the concrete. Those eyes - brilliant and bright and _alive_ \- search desperately around him before finding Joe’s face and focusing there.

“ _Yusuf_.”

The relief never lessens. It comes in a tidal wave, all at once. A dream made real. Another day, another moment, together.

At night, in the safety of their bed, Joe holds Nicky in his arms. He tries to sleep, but the world behind his eyelids is the one where Nicky died. He stays awake. He matches the steady rise and fall of Nicky’s chest under the palm he lays flat there. He feels the strong beat of his heart.

Nicky is awake, too, because Joe is. Joe knows the feel of him asleep. He suspects it’s the same for his love.

“I’m alive,” Nicky whispers, words swallowed by the crickets and the wind against the tree leaves but not lost to Joe, who has been waiting.

“Yes.”

“I’m here,” Nicky says.

Joe holds him tighter, though they already line one another fully, Nicky’s back along Joe’s front from shoulder to knee. It’s not close enough. If Joe could, he would meld them together, to live and die as one.

“The waiting.” Joe hopes that will explain.

It does. Of course it does. He probably needn’t have said anything at all.

Nicky places his hand over Joe’s on his chest, laces his fingers in the spaces between Joe’s. “It’s the same,” he says, “for me.”

There’s no quick way to heal. Even with his heart intact beside him, the fear will remain. He’ll stay glued to Nicky’s side for days, weeks, months. He’ll jump at backfiring cars. He’ll watch windows for the glint of a rifle. He’ll go first through doorways. He won’t sleep for nights.

“Joe,” Nicky says, drawing Joe away from his thoughts and back to the moment. To Nicky, close. Breathing. “Stay here.”

Joe huffs out a small smile. “I can deny you nothing.”

“Then stay. Right here. With me.”

“I’ll try.”

Joe presses his cheek to Nicky’s shoulder, soaking in his warmth. He counts Nicky’s breaths, and hums to the beat of his heart. True to his promise, his mind stays there with Nicky, wrapped in the kindness of love, until his eyelids drop and he no longer sees death behind them.


End file.
